Kessel, Phil Kessel, What?

The Bruins got lucky. Close to dropping yet another turd, the Bruins managed to string together about 8 minutes of something resembling hockey on Saturday night and beat the Islanders 4-3 in a shootout. Most of the game was pretty bad. Several penalties in the first period (Wheels high-sticked some sap, got a double-minor; Ference hauling off on some guy who cheap-shotted Savard. Aside - Here is my favorite Ference moment: Open-ice hit on Martin Erat, then pounds the shit out of Scot Nichol) sucked any momentum out of them for most of the game. The team hung around, though. Savard tucked in a goal, then Bitz singlehandedly lifted the whole team up with a backhand score, and finally Hunwick floated a weakass wrister than Roloson missed. The shootout went pretty well. I think most teams are hip to Patrice going five-hole on the goalies. He changed it up, dinged his opportunity off the post. Wheels put about 43 moves on Rollie before tucking it in five-hole. Then I saw Savard skate out and I verbally expressed my displeasure with the choice. Savard is, what, 2 for 13 in shootouts? The guy's got 1 move: forehand wrist shot. well, 2 moves - sometimes it's a slapshot from 15 feet away. So I groaned as he skated wide, then he faked Rollie right out of his skates and tossed in a sweet backhander. Bruins steal one from the young, energetic, slightly stupid Islanders. I now believe that all of Savard's shitty shootout attempts were all leading up to this point, some sort of hockey sniper rope-a-dope so he could steal a few games for us this year. It was later revealed to the media that Savvy & Cload met in Cload's office - Cload wanted Savvy to work on his shit in the shootouts, ostensibly to replace the now-departed Kessel.
Random crap:

• Hey, that John Tavares can shoot - I bet he went high in the draft.
• On a Sox note - Ya know, I'm pretty sick 'n tired of telecasts that show Sox fans clasping their hands together in some sort of "I hope we win, I'm sucha huge fan" pose. jeez. the Sox have lost a lot of games, they'll lose more, cut the shit. You have one of the most successful, richest franchises in sports - stop acting like that if they lose, you're going to hurl yourself from the Pru posthaste. And Sox fans have not cornered the market on dedication, fandom, etc. Get over yourselves. Imagine being an Orioles fan...talk about perennial suckage.
• "Sheriff" Shane Hnidy got an assist for the Minnesota Wild Saturday night.